In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
MACBETH, ACT 4, SCENE 1
In 1502, a young woman named Elsa walked across the Devil’s Bridge and hurtled herself into the frigid waters below. The bridge had a nasty reputation: located in a canton near Lake Zurich, it stood above a river that was so treacherous, many deaths often occurred there during the spring months of April and May, when the seasonal rains swelled its banks and caused it to overflow.
The bridge got its name from the tale of a local shepherd who one evening while tending to his flock found himself at the edge of the river, and, in trying to cross it, became so frightened by the violent currents that in a moment of passion he called not on God but on the devil to appear and build a bridge that would span from one end of the river to the other. The devil, of course, obliged the shepherd, but in true devilish fashion sought something in exchange for his favor: the soul of the first entity to cross the bridge, he said, would accompany him into hell.
The shepherd pondered this for a moment: true, he was grateful to the devil for the newly constructed bridge, but the idea of paying for it with his eternal soul did not really appeal to him. Nonetheless, he agreed to the devil’s request.
The devil stood by as the shepherd began his walk across the bridge, but cunningly, the shepherd let one of his goats walk ahead of him; after all, the devil had not specified whether the entity had to be human or animal. The devil watched dumbfounded. Did a shepherd, a mere mortal, think he was going to get away with that? He looked about and found a large boulder that he could hurl at the bridge and smash it to pieces. But in that instant, a local woman passed by and saw what was occurring. She whispered a prayer toward the boulder, and it became so heavy, not even the devil was able to pick it up. The devil, having been conned by two humans, skulked back into hell.
Following young Elsa’s suicide, her husband, Wilhelm, didn’t want their nine-year-old son, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, to have any connection to the devil, so he moved the child away from the area. But not even two decades later, Philippus, who by then had learned the art of alchemy, thanks in part to his having been an apprentice at his father’s side, sought knowledge beyond his father’s purview and called on the devil himself.
With that knowledge, Philippus became Paracelsus and began revolutionizing the discipline of alchemy through what he believed was a magical ability to transform metals into gold and, furthermore, to extend life or even to create it entirely anew. For some, Paracelsus represented everything that was successful about the art; he had developed the elixir of life and was capable of concocting a life-form from almost anything. But for others, as Charles Ponce, one of Paracelsus’s biographers, noted, he was nothing more than “the Faustian archetypal quack, that notorious seeker of wisdom who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for forbidden knowledge.”
Paracelsus, famous alchemist said to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for forbidden knowledge. He is also credited with having created the homunculus, the animated being made from bits and pieces of organic matter. Percy Shelley avidly read his works, as did the fictional Victor Frankenstein.
In the early 1800s, the alchemical works of people such as Paracelsus were on the minds and reading lists of natural philosophers, certain scientists, and particularly the literary community at large. Like many Romantic poets, who hoped to find a higher self in nature, alchemists tried to change nature in order to understand the self and create life anew, both literally and figuratively.
This desire for higher knowledge did not occur by coincidence. The French Revolution had come and gone and had left in its wake two new movements: the dawn of the Industrial Revolution as well as the beginning of a scientific revolution. At this time, the very nature of what it meant to be a man, or rather a human, was being questioned. The notion of reawakening the dead with a bolt of electricity, and the experiments designed to do so, brought to light certain moral questions people had no definite answers to: Was man a creature created by a God who dished out values and properties according to his fancies? Or was man a machine powered by an internal galvanic fluid, which in turn could be sparked alive by a rush of electricity? Did man possess a soul endowed by God? Or was he merely a soulless automaton?
For members of the Church, this last idea was abhorrent. If people came to believe that man was soulless, God would be taken out of the equation. But for some members of the scientific community, not to mention owners of industries, the idea of soulless humans had merit: after all, if the dead could reawaken, or even better, be created entirely anew, then potentially a new race could be unleashed and commanded as one pleased.
These newly established thoughts were making the rounds among the wildly popular salons, scientific circles, and literary communities. Pamphlets, books, and newspaper articles included discussions on the topic, with people responding with their own interpretations of what would happen if those ideas came to fruition. One of those responding was Mary Shelley.
In her 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Shelley has Victor Frankenstein create a soulless automaton from bits and pieces stolen from gloomy graveyards and death houses—and then bring that being to life by a force of electricity harnessed from the sky. But the monster of Mary Shelley’s work eventually overpowers his creator and runs wild, destroying everything and everyone Victor loves.
People questioned where Mary Godwin Shelley, a teenager, found the inspiration for her fictional characters. Of course, the experiments of Giovanni Aldini, Luigi Galvani, and Humphry Davy were the topic of many conversations during that time. But what about the alchemical works of people like Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, and Simon Magus? How did Mary Shelley know about them? Did she understand their implications? What their authors had done that brought their names into infamy?
Cornelius Agrippa, born Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, was accused of consorting with devils. His most famous work, De occulta philosophia, libri tres, was a practical guide to not only the occult but demonology. Legend suggests that on his deathbed, he allowed the black dog he always kept by his side to leave his house and roam the countryside free, a symbol of a demon being unleashed on the world. Villagers who came across the large animal thought this was a bad omen. Though Agrippa would eventually appear in Frankenstein, he first became famous in Goethe’s Faust.
Simon Magus, on the other hand, was also known as Simon the Sorcerer. His exploits are little known beyond the apocryphal text the Acts of Peter, where Simon’s battle against the apostle Peter are showcased. In a particular infamous duel that brought the sorcerer to the public’s eyes, the two men faced one another in the Roman Forum, Simon performing what appeared to be a magic trick that allowed him to levitate above the crowd. Watching the event, Peter begged God for help in trying to stop Simon’s flight. God listened and caused Simon to fall midflight. The crowd, who had enjoyed the performance until then, suddenly believed that Simon had been performing a parlor trick and turned on him, stoning him to death. It is this event that began the bickering between magic and religion.
Mary Shelley’s novel begins with Victor Frankenstein describing the work of these alchemists: “When I was thirteen we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined in the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa.” Victor’s father did not endorse his readings, calling them “sad trash,” but Victor persisted. “I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole
of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albert Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.”
What did Victor Frankenstein find in those works that sent his mind aflutter? What captured his fancy and propelled him forward with his plan? Maybe it was the fact that each, in his own way, claimed to have found the elixir of life, with Paracelsus being the first to use the term homunculus in reference to the animated being he gave life to and that was made entirely of bits and pieces that he had stitched together. This little being, the homunculus, was actually the prototype for what Frankenstein was about to create on his own device.
The recipe seemed simple and straightforward: a scattered pile of bones, some sperm, and “skin fragments and hair from any animal of which the homunculus would be a hybrid.” All of these were the essential ingredients needed to create life. In his book De rerum natura—Concerning the Nature of Things—Paracelsus instructed the would-be alchemist to amass all needed supplies in a heap, knead the ingredients into a shape, and later bury the whole concoction in the ground, where, surrounded by horse manure, it would come to life after forty days.
“Let the semen of man putrefy itself in a sealed cucurbit with the highest putrefaction of the vester equinus [horse’s womb] for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but,” Paracelsus wrote, “nevertheless transparent and without a body. If now after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the Arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks in the perpetual and eternal heat of a vester equinus, it becomes, henceforth, a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated with the greatest care . . . until it grows up and begins to display intelligence.”
If creating life from scratch seemed too complicated, the alchemist could simply bring back the dead. This notion of resuscitation captivated the natural philosophers and Romantic poets of the 1800s. Resuscitation was possible, Paracelsus believed: “Death is twofold, that is to say, violent or spontaneous. From the one, a thing can be resuscitated, but not from the other.”
It was always thought that Paracelsus learned the secrets of alchemy from his father, who, following their departure from Switzerland, settled as a physician in Villach, a German outpost. As his father’s apprentice, Paracelsus was privy to all the secrets of the trade, which he later developed further and which eventually allowed him, critics believed, to create the being called a homunculus. The small creature, a mere foot tall at most, awoke suddenly and began “to live, move, and be agitated,” until it stared glassy-eyed at its surroundings and its creator. But, much like in Frankenstein, problems soon arose when the creature, eager to further its knowledge, defied Paracelsus instead of bowing down to him. When word of this spread, it widened Paracelsus’s reputation for performing the devil’s handiwork. He was also an itinerant doctor, and unusual stories arose in the cities he visited across Europe. One prominent tale began to circulate in the German town of Ingolstadt.
Coincidentally, the character Victor Frankenstein attends the University of Ingolstadt following the tragic death of his mother. That’s also where he meets the charismatic Professor Waldman; where his ideas about creating life come into play; where he raids the cemeteries; and where, finally, he brings the creature to life.
While at the university, Frankenstein finds himself in a peculiar state of mind. Bereaved, he ponders the unnaturalness, the evil the entire process of death and decay truly is. Having already read the works of the alchemists, Professor Waldman’s teachings solidify his thoughts and the direction of his work.
Waldman does not scoff at the alchemists, and this allows Frankenstein to combine his alchemical works with this scientific experimentation, technically to “penetrate the recess of nature and to know how she works in her hiding places.” Waldman’s thinking on this can be traced directly to the real-life Humphry Davy, and, in a nonlinear way, to Paracelsus.
The process of alchemy was at the highest point during Mary Shelley’s lifetime. Alchemists were not only trying to turn base metals into gold, but to find the key to immortality. As the illustration shows, it was not only scientists and alchemists who were involved in the practice, but monks secluded in their monasteries. For them, finding the key to immortality was not going against God; rather, it was a way to understand Him and His doings.
But while in Ingolstadt, Paracelsus was not able to bring someone back to life. Instead, during his days in the town, he did cause a paralyzed woman whose condition was said to be irreversible to walk again. No one knew how he did this, but some said it was brought about by his medicinal lotion called Azoth of the Red Lion. This “universal medicine” contained mercury, which even then was known to possess curative powers. There are accounts of the girl’s rising from her bed and waltzing gleefully into the next room, where her parents sat reading.
Paracelsus was not the only person to think of a man-made creature, nor was Mary Shelley the first to write about it. History, lore, and religion have numerous tales of mystical men who created beings large and small—either to help in times of trouble or simply because their physical labors had become too burdensome. Most of these belong to the Jewish tradition and involve a creature called a golem. It was in sixteenth-century Prague that the most renowned golem of all came into existence. It was there that Rabbi Loew removed some soil from the earth and made himself an assistant.
Rabbi Loew knew the city’s Jewish population wanted help, but also that his own household needed assistance with the daily chores. As a rabbi, he was aware of the incantations required for golem-making. He didn’t need putrid sperm or horse manure like Paracelsus. Rather, a lump of clay, long-forgotten prayers recited in a specific rotation, and the quiet whispering of God’s secret name would do the trick. As such, Rabbi Loew and two of his relations dug out clay, which was then shaped into the form of a small man. They stretched out the clay figure on a large table situated in the middle of a room and took turns walking around it seven times, while rhythmically chanting their prayers and whispering to God. Soon, the clay creature began to glow from within, and as more prayers were uttered the creature grew in size. Eventually it opened its eyes and, startled by being brought to life, gazed at them, as if intent on pleasing them.
But as it continued to grow, Rabbi Loew was afraid to let it out of his sight. In addition to increasing in size, the golem also got smarter and smarter and learned to disobey orders, while also overstepping its boundaries. Not long thereafter, it was decided the creature should be returned to the clay. Three men straddled the golem and roped it tightly. Once again the people circled the golem, but this time they did so in the opposite direction, while again reciting prayers that would take away the life force they had given the creature. They also recalled the secret name of God. When this was done, the creature lost its life force and sank back onto itself.
The golem tales were common all over Europe. Jacob Grimm, half of the famous team the brothers Grimm, in his 1808 book Journal for Hermits wrote, “The Polish Jews, after having spoken certain prayers and observed certain Fast days, make the figure of a man out of clay or lime, which must come to life after they have pronounced the wonderworkings Shem-ham—phorasheh. This figure cannot speak, but it understands what one says and commands it to do. They call it Golem and use it as a servant to do all sorts of housework, only he may never leave the house. On his forehead the word Aemaeth (Truth, God) is written, but his weight increases from day to day, and he easily becomes taller and stronger than all the other members of the household, however small he might have been in the beginning. Becoming afraid of him, they therefore erase the first letter so that nothing remains but Maeth (he is dead), whereupon he collapses into clay.”
Given everything readers of Frankenstein k
new about alchemy and creating a man, they were left to wonder how much Victor Frankenstein truly knew about man-making when he referred to Paracelsus and Simon Magus. And how much did Mary Shelley know about them when she referred to them? Where had she learned alchemy? It wasn’t a matter of where she learned of them but of who had taught her. And that man was a young poet who entered her life early on and, as if she were much like alchemical clay, reshaped the direction of her days. He was Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In 1812 Percy Shelley wrote a letter to William Godwin in which he described not only his movements and current situations but also what he’d been reading. In the letter, he said he had read all of the books about Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. This admission, which sounded suspiciously like the one Victor Frankenstein makes to his own father, began on a correspondence between Shelley and Godwin, which had developed some months earlier. Shelley had learned that the reformer was still alive and not dead, as he had come to believe, thus had quickly drafted a letter full of youthful enthusiasm, praise, and the proper dose of flattery. The letter worked its magic on Godwin; the reformer quickly replied.
Percy Shelley. This portrait was painted in Rome in 1819, by Amelia Curran. It is the most well-known portrait of the poet, and Mary Shelley went to great lengths to get it from the artist following Percy Shelley’s death. Luckily for Mary Shelley, Amelia Curran still had it in her possession—believing it was not a good likeness of the poet, Curran was about to burn it when word from Mary Shelley reached her.
Godwin was used to receiving letters like this from young men who had been inspired by his writing and wanted confirmation they were pursuing the right approach themselves. In 1803, he had received such a letter from a young man named H. Chatterton. Only twenty-one years old, Chatterton’s words were oddly similar to ones Mary Shelley would write years later, and they also echo the ones Victor Frankenstein mutters on pages printed over a decade later.
The Lady and Her Monsters Page 8